Back In My Life
by Ravenclaw-Rose
Summary: Bert walks back in to Evie's life, when she needs him the most.


Disclaimer: characters aren't mine

Back in my Life

When she had seen him for the first time in thirty eight years she was unable to believe it was really him. The man she had longed for so, so long. Her Albert. Her wonderful Albert.

Yes she had had George all those years. Safe, solid, reliable George. He hadn't been who she had wanted.

It has been her Bert. No one else. Every Christmas, every birthday when Karen looked up at George and said 'thank you daddy,' it had killed her inside. She had wanted to scream at him that he was not Karen's daddy and that he was never going to be. And then she had simply wanted to gather her beautiful child in to her arms and run to her father.

But she never had. She didn't know why.

She had done some thing she knew Bert would never had wanted her to do. She had fell in to submission. To be a good wife, a fabulous mother. She had simply stopped being a lover. She had been nineteen and the day they came and took Bert, was the day she had begun to die. Inside she had been dying for years. It was only now people saw it. There hadn't been a day gone by when she hadn't thought of him.

How ever, she was not the Evie he had known and she dared to say he had loved. She had been wild and she had been passionate when she had been with him and she had wanted to be alive simply because she had him. She felt if they were together she could touch the sky.

It was real. Not fake like it had been with George. She had wanted him so bad that it hurt even when he had just dropped her off home in the rusty banger of his.

It had been blue and a convertible. Falling to pieces, she remembered,. But it had been theirs. She remembered how when they had been newly courting they had run down to Scarborough in every chance they had got. Even if it had just been for dinner.

Fish, chips and mushy peas. That had summed them up to a 'T'.

Then he asked her to be his girl. Really his girl. He had wanted them to be wed. That had been the happiest day of her life, forget the wedding! When it had been her and him and no one else. Well apart from when they had had their precious baby girl.

He had been a wonderful father when he had been there for the two of them, he had the ability to be a real family man. He had just never lived up to what he may have been.

What there family could have been…

And then he had gone to prison. She had got scared. And she had betrayed him.  
All those times when it had been just she and Karen. She could have explained to her that George wasn't her daddy but she had never been able to. How did you tell your daughter some thing like that?

Deep down though, she had always wondered if Karen had figured it out her self though and been unable to say.

Evie wished she had been able to if she had known.

But some times when George had not been looking Evie had caught her daughter looking at him as if to say 'you're not my dad'.

He could never be Bert to her, to either of them. And he had been the one they had needed… all those years…

Through all the pain. Through the cancer. When she had been watching her beautifully free spirited daughter fade, it had been her real daddy she had needed.

It had been when her daughter had been passing that Evie had seriously considered coming clean. But she couldn't. Ignorance was bliss for her baby girl and she wanted them to part well.

Evie had been so selfish. She had held her in her arms and she had promised it was going to be ok. Jay was going to be well looked after yes, and he would always have a home with her.

And yet here she was in a home where he was not able to be with her, only a friend. And here was Bert, his material grandfather. There was nothing for it; he was just going to have to take him in after she passed. She had to knew he was ok. And if he was with Bert then she knew he was going to be fine.

She was so happy he was here now, she was ecstatic. She had said it. She had re-declared her love for him.

She only wished they could go on one last run out to Scarborough. She would have liked that. Her and him in the water again, laughing as they splashed about.  
Her and her prince. He had been hers. He was hers.

So he was back in her life. She had no need to cry now. She wasn't scared of death. Not now. Let it come, let it take her. She knew in her heart when it happened they were going to be together.

It was her destiny, otherwise why had he come back to be with her.

And in tbese her final days she wanted to nothing but him. The soft touch his hand, running through her hair as he had when they had been young. Of course, her hair wasn't blonde any more. His hand had been weathered by years of crime no doubt.

But when they were together, the battle scars and the wrinkles wore away to reveal who they had been when they had been teenagers. Just young lovers, who walked along the sea and dreamt of growing old together.

And here at the parting of the ways they were back together. And she knew when the time came he was going to stand by her. She wasn't worried. He was there. She was safe.


End file.
